[Edaily Starin YUN GI BACK Reporter] “110,000 won → 80,000 won → 50,000 won → 30,000 won.”
The box office frenzy surrounding director Christopher Nolan’s new film “The Odyssey” is spilling over into the black-market ticket trade. This is because a premium is being charged for seats at CGV Yongsan I’Park Mall IMAX—known as “Yong-A-Mac”—which is considered the best venue in Korea to watch *The Martian*. Although asking prices, which had soared well over 100,000 won around the time of the film’s release, have recently dropped to between 30,000 and 50,000 won, scalped tickets are still available.

On secondhand trading platforms, it’s not hard to find posts recently offering “The Odyssey” tickets for the Yongsan IMAX. These tickets, which normally cost around 20,000 won, are being sold with markups ranging from as little as 10,000 won to as much as tens of thousands of won. Following listings that once offered prices as high as 110,000 won, recent listings have lowered their asking prices from 80,000 won and 50,000 won down to the 30,000-won range.
It’s hard to say that *The Odyssey*’s popularity has waned just because prices have dropped. One of the key factors determining scalper prices is “seat location.” At the Yongsan IMAX theater, prime seats in the center of the screen sell out as soon as tickets go on sale, whereas a significant number of tickets on the secondary market are for relatively less desirable seats, such as those on the left or right sides. This means that even for the same movie and the same theater, the asking price for scalped tickets varies significantly depending on the seat location.
The nature of movies as content also affects pricing. While live performances and sports events are often held only once on a specific date and time, movies are screened multiple times over a certain period. Even if you can’t secure your desired seat immediately, you can aim for the next showing, and if the run continues, there’s a chance to snag a canceled ticket. This is why there’s relatively little incentive to unconditionally accept the price set by the seller. It’s believed that as the explosive demand seen early in the release period has spread across multiple showings and preferences vary greatly depending on seat location, it has become difficult to arbitrarily set high prices even in the black market.
Nevertheless, the reason why scalping for *The Odyssey* continues unabated lies in the film’s unique screening format. “The Odyssey” was filmed entirely with an IMAX film camera. In particular, as viewing demand has concentrated at the Yongsan IMAX theater—the only venue in Korea where audiences can fully experience the 1.43:1 aspect ratio—factors such as “where” and “which seat” have emerged as key elements of the viewing experience, going beyond the simple question of “whether to watch the movie.”

In fact, even before its release, “The Martian” sparked fierce competition for the best seats at Yongsan IMAX. “Yongsan IMAX ticketing” itself became a hot topic, with users flooding the website simultaneously at the start of the booking period and center seats for popular showtimes selling out rapidly. The combination of high demand and limited seating led to an unusual premium being placed on movie tickets.
The problem is that it is not easy to directly regulate the resale of movie tickets. While mechanisms exist in the performing arts and sports sectors to regulate illegal ticket trading through relevant laws, critics point out that the resale of movie theater tickets falls into an institutional blind spot because it is difficult to regulate in the same way. This is why there are no effective sanctions against the practice of reselling movie tickets online at a markup.
For now, cinema operators’ own measures are effectively the main line of defense. CGV monitors cases of habitual ticket resale or misuse for illegal transactions, and when a user is identified as a reseller, it takes measures such as restricting their account, forcing them to withdraw, and canceling their reservations.